The Prince of Egypt, celebrating its 25th anniversary, remains a significant animated film that doesn't shy away from the complexities of its source material. This article delves into the creation of the film, its cultural impact, and the fascinating world of the Prince of Egypt dolls.
The Genesis of an Epic
Mr. Jeffrey Katzenberg had always wanted to do an animated adaptation of The Ten Commandments. While working for The Walt Disney Company, Katzenberg suggested this idea to Michael Eisner, but he refused. The idea for the film was brought back at the formation of DreamWorks SKG in 1994, when Katzenberg's partners, Amblin Entertainment founder Steven Spielberg, and music producer David Geffen, were meeting in Spielberg's living room.
Simon Wells, who co-directed The Prince of Egypt with Steve Hickner and Brenda Chapman, recalled his initial hesitation about the project during a 1998 interview. “I was thinking, ‘Do I really want to make this story?'” he remembered. Wells then thought about a brutal passage from the tale, in which the Egyptian prince Moses, seeing the persecution of the Hebrew slaves, grows so angered he kills an Egyptian guard. “My question to Stephen and Jeffrey was, ‘Is the guard going to die?'” said Wells. “I thought, ‘If Moses does kill the guard.
The late Kelly Asbury, who, along with Lorna Cook, served as head of story for The Prince of Egypt, recalled, in a 1998 interview, a conversation he had with Jeffrey Katzenberg: “He said to me, ‘We’re going to push the envelope here. We can’t make this movie and be true to it without dealing with the issues that are in it.’ There’s no way that you can tell this story truthfully without dealing with those issues.
Crafting the Narrative
The Prince of Egypt was "written" throughout the story process. Beginning with a starting outline, Story Supervisors Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook led a team of fourteen storyboard artists and writers as they sketched out the entire film - sequence by sequence. Once the storyboards were approved, they were put into the Avid Media Composer digital editing system by editor Nick Fletcher to create a "story reel" or animatic. The story reel allowed the filmmakers to view and edit the entire film in continuity before production began and also helped the layout and animation departments understand what was happening in each sequence of the film.
Read also: Exploring The Prince of Egypt's Impact
For the film, the actors recorded individually in a studio under the guidance of one of the three directors, after the casting of the voice talent concluded, dialogue recording sessions began. The voice tracks were to become the primary aspect on which the animators built their performances.
The Art and Design
Art directors Kathy Altieri and Richard Chavez and Production Designer Derek Gogol led a team of nine visual development artists in setting a visual style for the film that was representative of the time, the scale, and the architectural style of Ancient Egypt. Character Designers Carter Goodrich, Carlos Grangel, and Nicolas Marlet worked on setting the design and overall look of the characters. Drawing on various inspirations for the widely known characters, the team of character designers worked on designs that had a more realistic feel than the usual animated characters up to that time.
Both character design and art direction worked to set a definite distinction between the symmetrical, more angular look of the Egyptians versus the more organic, natural look of the Hebrews and their related environments. The Backgrounds department, headed by supervisors Paul Lasaine and Ron Lukas, oversaw a team of artists who were responsible for painting the sets/backdrops from the layouts.
Animation and Special Effects
The animation team for The Prince of Egypt, including 350 artists from 34 different nations, was primarily recruited both from Walt Disney Feature Animation, which had fallen into Katzenberg's auspices while at The Walt Disney Company, and from Amblimation, a defunct division of Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment. At Disney's, character animators were grouped into teams by character: for example, Kristoff Serrand, as the supervising animator of Older Moses, set the acting style of the characters and the assigned scenes to his team.
There are 1,192 scenes in the film, and 1,180 of them have special effects in them. These special effects were elements such as wind blowing or environmental features such as dust or rainwater. These were also effects designed in terms of lightning, as it casts its shadows and images into a given scene. In the end, these effects helped the animators graphically illustrate scenes such as the ten plagues of Egypt and the parting of the Red Sea.
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The task of creating God's voice was given to Lon Bender and the team working with the film's music composer, Hans Zimmer. "The challenge with that voice was to try to evolve it into something that had not been heard before," says Bender. "We did a lot of research into the voices that had been used for past Hollywood movies as well as for radio shows, and we were trying to create something that had never been previously heard not only from a casting standpoint but from a voice manipulation standpoint as well.
the Prince of Egypt: From Dream to Screen
Musical Score
Composer and lyricist Stephen Schwartz began working on writing songs for the film from the beginning of the film's production. As the story evolved, he continued to write songs that would entertain and help move the story along. Composer Hans Zimmer arranged and produced the songs and eventually wrote the film's score.
Three soundtrack albums were released simultaneously for The Prince of Egypt, each of them aimed towards a different target audience. While the other two accompanying records, the country-themed "Nashville" soundtrack and the gospel-based "Inspirational" soundtrack, functioned as film tributes, the official The Prince of Egypt soundtrack contained the actual songs from the film. The album combines elements from the score composed by Hans Zimmer and film songs by Stephen Schwartz. The songs were either voiced over by professional singers (such as Salisbury Cathedral Choir) or sung by the film's voice actors, such as Michelle Pfeiffer and Ofra Haza. Various tracks by contemporary artists such as K-Ci & JoJo and Boyz II Men were added, including the Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston duet "When You Believe", a Babyface rewrite of the original Stephen Schwartz composition, sung by Michelle Pfeiffer and Sally Dworsky in the film.
The Prince of Egypt looked to break the more conventional animated musical formula. “The subject matter just needed something more classical than Broadway,” added co-director Chapman (the first female director of a major studio animated feature) in a 1998 interview. “It needed to feel epic. We all felt that stopping for a number would be a little strange. Schwartz also stated, “One of the really enjoyable things about the animation process is the collaborations with the visual artists.
Cultural and Educational Impact
The American Jewish community spends about $1 billion a year on Jewish education. "The Prince of Egypt" cost about $75 million to produce and is probably going to be the most cost-effective and accessible Jewish educational experience for a new generation that is media savvy. And it is only the first in a wave of animated biblical dramas that are going to compete for our attention and dollars. Disney's story of "King David" will be coming soon, and Disney and Dreamworks will both be producing competing versions of the story of Joseph within the next two years.
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"The Prince of Egypt" alone will not elevate the Jewish self-confidence of our children, but I did walk out of the theater with my head lifted a little bit higher. Parents need to rent this movie with their children and then set aside time to process the many messages and images that "The Prince of Egypt" bestows.
The Prince of Egypt Dolls
One of their grandparents weighed in with dolls of Moses and his wife Tzipporah, which have already replaced the amoral Barbies. (I was hoping for a Jethro doll, since the movie portrayed the Midiyanite priest as an Arthur Waskow look-a-like! - long beard and all) Jeffrey Katzenberg, the executive producer of the film, introduced a major corrective in Jewish history by giving life and voice to Tzipporah and to Miriam, Moses' sister. Even Yochevet, Moses's mother (vocals by the late Ofra Haza), and Pharaoh's wife make brief yet important appearances.
Based on the hit Dreamworks film! - Collect All These Exquisite Figures from the Prince of Egypt Collection! - Moses is chosen Royal Chief Architect by his brother, Prince Regent Ramses - Not for children under 3 years--small parts - Made in China Brand new. From a clean, non-smoking environment.
Historical Accuracy and Reception
The 1998 animated film, never released in Egypt, was criticised for misrepresenting ancient Egypt. Last month, London saw the premiere of “The Prince of Egypt,” a musical based on the eponymous animated film that came out in 1998. The DreamWorks picture tells the story of the Book of Exodus, and depicts Moses as an Egyptian prince who discovers his Hebrew roots, flees the palace and returns to deliver the enslaved Hebrews to the promised land.
The story is almost entirely set in ancient Egypt, but the film was never released in contemporary Egypt. The Egyptian government banned it for its portrayal of a prophet, often considered forbidden in Islam. But perhaps more significantly, the movie outraged several Egyptians who believed it misrepresented ancient Egyptian history. Similar concerns were the reason for the Egyptian ban of the 2014 motion picture “Exodus.”
Nonetheless, “The Prince of Egypt” is, in many ways, demonstrably inspired by Egyptian material culture. Sure enough, the film takes liberties with biblical and pharaonic history. In the Book of Exodus, the pharaoh is never mentioned by name, but the film identifies him as the historical king Ramesses II. The film thus implicitly dates the story to around 1250 BCE. Moses and Ramesses are seen growing up during the reign of Ramesses´ father, king Seti I.
Perhaps most contested is the depiction of the Hebrew slaves. There is archaeological evidence for “Canaanites” or “Asiatics” (Levantines) in Egypt, but not much is known about them and they were certainly not all slaves in the modern sense of the word. Still, various forms of corvée, forced labour, and slavery existed in ancient Egypt. To underscore the theme of unbearable slave labour, the film often grossly exaggerates the dimensions of Egyptian statues and buildings. Building techniques in the film are based on archaeological evidence. Slaves are producing mudbrick and carry loads of building material, while overseers strike them with whips. Temple and palace walls are inscribed with authentic Egyptian hieroglyphs. Some sign groups even contain actual words, but generally they do not form sentences. Still, early in the story, during the reign of Seti, walls are inscribed with his royal names.
The film’s design is wrong in showing colossal statues facing each other. These would always be directed towards the viewer. Interestingly, a wall in the palace depicts king Akhenaten, identifiable by the hieroglyphic inscriptions. In fact, the relief is a copy of a stela of Akhenaten. This is probably a nod to the monotheistic revolution brought about by this king, who abandoned the traditional gods in favour of a single god - a theme explored in the film.
These are contrasted with the colourful garbs of the Hebrews, perhaps modelled after Egyptian depictions of Canaanites who may have worn dyed woollen clothing. Moses wears a wig over his real hair, as most well-to-do Egyptians would have. The Egyptian queen wears the typical vulture headdress. Finally, when Ramesses and his army chase after the Hebrews, he is wearing the blue crown and an armour of falcon´s wings. This outfit is clearly lifted from a relief in the temple of Ramesses II at Beit el-Wali that depicts his Nubian campaign. Ramesses and Moses are seen racing horse chariots. Less convincing are the depictions of pillows seen on beds.
From an Egyptologist’s point of view, however, it transpires that the creators had a real love for the material culture of ancient Egypt. Their recreation of life during the time of Ramesses is more often accurate than not. That is much more than can be said of movies such as “Gods of Egypt” (2016) and “The Mummy” (2017). They are every Egyptologist’s worst nightmare in terms of historical accuracy, yet were released in Egypt without any fuss.
| Character | Description |
|---|---|
| Moses | Born a Hebrew, raised as an Egyptian prince, destined to lead his people to freedom. |
| Tzipporah | Moses' wife, bringing life and voice to Jewish history. |
| Ramses | Moses' brother, who becomes the Pharaoh of Egypt. |
| Miriam | Moses' sister |
| Yochevet | Moses' mother |
| Jethro | The Midianite priest |
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